Ping Pong With A UA Superstar By Tom Danehy FOR THOSE OF you who gave up on the football Wildcats after their opening loss at Oregon (and judging by the turnout for the home opener last Saturday, there were more than a hundred of you), I have good news. Miles Simon is back for his senior year. He's fit, focused and ready to lead the Cats back to the Promised Land. He was at the gym the other night. He walked up and said, "Tom, I've worked all summer, putting in long hours of sweat and tears to gain a new physical skill. I'm never going to be embarrassed in public again." "Miles, that's great," I said. "You took dancing lessons." (You may recall that while the Cats were making their title run last spring, Miles could be seen on TV sorta dancing. Dancing Lite, I guess you could call it. He looked like Pee-Wee Herman doing an impression of John Cougar Mellencamp doing an impression of Midwestern white people dancing. It reminded me of Joseph Blair, except Miles has a future in basketball.) "No," he said. "I'm ready for you in ping pong." I've always been pretty good at ping pong. I probably owe it to my chronically short arms. When I reached adulthood, my arms were about as long as Herve Villachaize's. I make better use of mine, though, mostly because he killed himself a few years ago. I think it had something to do with the fact that he was a millionaire dwarf who got bummed when he found out his six-foot-tall wife was cheating on him. It's like what Denis Leary said of Lou Gehrig dying of Lou Gehrig's Disease: He probably should have seen it coming. Anyway, I had never noticed I had short arms until one day in high school a friend pointed out that I had to bend at the waist to retrieve a coin from my pants pocket. Still, the only thing it ever kept me from doing in sports was being a football referee. If I ever tried to signal a touchdown, nobody in the stadium would know what had happened. My short arms made me a killer in ping pong, mostly because I could generate significant torque and put some fire on the ball. I tattooed more chests than John Elway. Full-contact ping pong. One of my college coaches saw me play once. He told me that short, strong arms were good for a boxer. Therefore, if I wanted to box, all I would need was strength to go along with the shortness. He said that a short-armed fighter could be a terror fighting in close, going to the body. I thought about it for awhile, then I realized that with my overall slowness of foot, by the time I got in close enough to go to the body, my face would look like something that was served for dinner to Hungarian prisoners. Having suffered punishing defeats in games of skill at my hands in the past, it was understandable that a proud athlete like Miles would want to get back. And I'm sure Wildcat basketball fans everywhere will be thrilled to learn that he spent his entire summer honing his table tennis skills. He can start working on his jump shot around February. Miles was accompanied by his best friend, John Ash. These two are inseparable, twin sons of different mothers. They're together so much they're starting to resemble each other, like Will and Ariel Durant. John boldly stated that he wanted a piece of me when Miles got through. Poor John--six years at Salpointe High and ain't got a licka sense. Miles and I started playing. He was smiling like he knew that, for this night at least, he wouldn't have to pay for the company of the women who were with him. I guess it's like at Just For Feet, where the 13th one is free. I actually had a 3-2 lead after his first service. Generally, I try to stay even while my opponent is serving and then surge ahead on the strength of my short-armed serve. But Miles handled my serve with ease. After he slammed one back past me, he looked up and said, "When I hit it at you, you're supposed to hit it back." That, apparently, was the extent of the mess he could talk. See, poor Miles was actually brought up in a stable, caring environment, so he doesn't have the street snottiness which infects most top-level college basketball players these days. That also explains his dancing. He tried everything to distract me. He told me about his new Ford Expedition; I'm sure it's just a coincidence that he got it at the same place as UCLA's Schea Cotton and Baron Davis. Besides, he told me the sporty vehicle wasn't even new when he bought it. Something about the dealership owner ripping the sticker off the window and driving it around the block a couple times so it would be "used" and could be sold accordingly. Miles really wanted to win badly. One time he had his agent try to make loud noises in the background. Then he had Ash stand up on a nearby foosball table and do the dance scene from The Full Monty. Actually, John's pretty good at nude tabletop dancing. Perhaps a little too good. One thing's for sure. Those steroids that Miles gave him really worked. With him standing up there naked and all, it was easy to see that what they say about the effects of steroids is true--both the good and the bad. I scored 21 points--in three games. Miles whupped me like he was my daddy. I'm still ahead of him in overall competitions, but for now he owns ping pong. I played John afterwards and took out my frustration on him. He insisted on playing nude. I was afraid I'd hit him in a bad spot, but what with the effects of the steroids and all, there wasn't much chance of that. I also beat him in chess. He was doing okay until he tried to double-jump me with that horsey thing. It's been a long time since I've lost in ping pong, but all in all, like my homie Ice Cube would say, I guess it was a good day. NOTE TO THE NCAA: I was just being humorous when I said those things about Miles and John. I'm sure you understand jokes. In fact, you played a big one when you let UCLA participate in this year's NCAA national softball championships. The only thing that's true is that Miles beat me in ping pong and that I beat John. That, and one other thing, but it's probably not all that important. Now run along and investigate Michigan.

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